A novel bladder cancer urinary biomarker: can it go where no marker has gone before?

In their recent publication in BJUI, Pichler et al. (1) report the diagnostic accuracy of Xpert BC Monitor, a biomarker combining the measured expression of 5 mRNAs (ABL1, CRH, IGF2, UPK1B & ANXA10) in voided urine. The study evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of the assay in 140 patients with a known history of NMIBC. White light cystoscopy and urine cytology were the diagnostic gold standard. Within this cohort, 43 patients (30.7%) were found to have a tumor recurrence.